‘We fight the government’: superunion bares teeth

It’s no coincidence that the Canadian Auto Workers and the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers are merging in the midst of a right-wing “attack” on labour, union members were told on Monday.

“We have to send out a message,” CAW president Ken Lewenza said. “We have a mandate. We have a vision … We fight the f—ing boss. We fight the government.”

About 300 CAW and CEP members packed a hall in Windsor for one in a series of regional joint meetings about the new union’s vision and constitution. The combined new union will represent 300,000 workers from across Canada, making it Canada’s largest private sector union. The founding convention is set for Labour Day weekend.

In presentations from the union leadership, Conservatives Stephen Harper, Brad Wall and Tim Hudak were repeatedly singled out for their “harsh right-wing policies.”

“We’re going to have a union that will stop them,” said Gaétan Ménard, the secretary-treasurer of the CEP.

Jim Gordon, a local assembly plant worker, approached the microphone during a question-and-answer period to tell the presenters that he’d been against the merger until this morning. He said the promise of “more action towards government” changed his mind.

All of the coming changes – from a new name to be unveiled at the end of May, to the introduction of community chapters anyone can join for a nominal fee – were billed to members as an opportunity to modernize and expand the labour movement.

At no point was that thrust conveyed in a more surreal manner than when CAW economist Jim Stanford took the mic, wearing sunglasses and a backwards cap, and rapped: “In this day of right-wing zealots there’s just one thing we can do. Build a better union, something big and something new.”

The speakers listed the rise of globalization, precarious work and neoliberal policies among the causes of the gradual decline in union membership in Canada.

“The union brand is very weak currently. It’s been compromised,” said Angelo DiCaro, a CAW representative.

In a bid to build public support, the new union is envisioned as being very involved in local communities. CEP representative Patty Barrera described it as a “social union” where traditional members and community chapters will participate in “campaigns, campaigns and more campaigns.”

“I say we rise up and we fight back … by creating a really kick-ass organization that begins as soon as possible,” she told the crowd.

Most immediately, the superunion is anticipating “the fight of our lives” against right-to-work legislation, which has spread from the southern U.S. to as far north as Michigan, where it was introduced just a few months ago.

“It’s right at our doorstep now,” Stanford said.

Under the right-to-work rules, workers can choose whether or not to join the union at their workplace, a flexibility businesses embrace. The CAW and CEP want to preserve the Rand formula, which requires everyone at a unionized workplace to pay union dues and prevents free-riding.

Stanford warned the membership that a right-to-work proposal is ultimately a bid to get rid of unions altogether, by cutting off the number of people who are likely to continue to pay the dues that allow unions to fight.

“That is their end goal. Make no mistake about it,” he said. “Whenever we have an election, Tim Hudak’s going to be running on a pledge to abolish unions.”

The CAW and CEP union leadership believes it can fight the 2013 labour landscape as a unified force.

“It’s not 1985 and we need to prepare,” said Peter Kennedy, the secretary-treasurer of the CAW. “It’s an opportunity to make the labour movement in this country more relevant.”